Face Off: Digital Foundry vs Reality

Yes believe it or not, some people out there believe that not only is the Xbox 360 equal to the PlayStation 3 in power but is actually superior as well. One prime example is Richard Leadbetter, the writer of the Digital Foundry blog. His latest attempt is their latest comparison Face Off: Final Fantasy XIII. It's about time someone called him out.

[ClownBelt]

Digital Foundry got busted...hahaha

[phosphor112]

BAHAHAHA!

[CrippleH]

That comparison article was pretty damn biased. A lot of the talk was how the 360 version could have been better rather then talking about shadow quality, texture quality, and etc. I don't see them doing the same thing with Bayonetta PS3 version.

[FamilyGuy]

I noticed all these things (360 defending, PS3 downplaying) when I read the DF FF13 article but I had never read the bayo one for contrast. I also completely forgot who it was (in gaming media) that had made that extremely bold claim/speculation/prediction of the 360 version being better once the game finally got released. I remember that article clearly and even considered that the guy might end up right because of how well thought out it was. I even encouraged people not to boast about which would be better just in case that did happen.

Everything he said was like getting all the best arguments from this site about PS3 vs 360 situations (on this subject) and spreading them out so everyone could see them clearly. *clap clap clap* BRAVO!

PS1 ff titles 7 8 and 9 were linear, SE claiming 13 on PS3 wouldn't be compromised yet coincidentally it ends up "linear as a string" with all exploration done at the end or the the 360 version case, entirely on the 3rd disc.

DF has lost a lot of credit today.

[DevastationEve]

This guy makes an absurd case. He doesn't understand the way that Square Enix decided to port FF XIII from the PC to the consoles. There is an architectural difference when working on PC 360 or PS3, in particular the two consoles have different approaches to how graphics work is done. Speaking of graphics, both PS3 and Xbox 360 are comparable in specs and are both considered HD gaming consoles.

Xbox 360 has a very powerful graphics chip that gives developers a 48-way unified pipeline to utilize for graphics and a tripple core dual threaded PPC 970 cpu for all other work. Xenos has support for hardware tesselation, and Xenos itself has 10MB of eDRAM "intelligent memory" for its framebuffer. The daughter die consists of additional logic for handling intensive framebuffer functions, and 192 pixel processors to supply extreme pixel fillrate. Xbox 360 has 512MB of GDDR3 memory that's unified and shared between cpu and gpu.

PS3 takes a backwards approach and uses a less pipeline efficient gpu coupled with a cpu that's designed to take on more than just AI. RSX does its job to process pixels but as developers start taking advantage of CellBE for its potential to do more graphics work RSX will see its use be more strategicly focused on pixel fillrate than vertex processing. Unfortunately RSX's memory isn't fast enough to compete with Xenos's eDRAM, so lots of games on PS3 don't have antialiasing. Developers have recently worked on utilizing CellBE to solve the problem, however it means having to utilize more of the XDR memory. So Sony releases updates to the SDK to free up more memory for use by developers.

There's the spec story for you. But there's one more piece of the story that's also important. Xbox 360 has consistetly matched PS3 in graphics despite being the cheaper of the two. And will continue to drive home the games I want, 5 years into the game. FF XIII was always on my list, and soon it's gonna be on my shelf. Good day :D

[barom]

lol, I was quite the avid reader of DF actually and I always thought they were more professional than lens of truth (which I still think) but I guess he is right. I always disliked it when he/they began putting in opinions in his "analysis" as they always seemed 360 biased but I figured it was just me being a PS3 fanboy and saw it that way. I guess I was right then and it wasn't my biased state of mind. The FFXIII comparison was actually extremely clear, the whole focus of that article was what the 360 port should've been instead of doing their regular face off. Then he did that "it's all about gameplay" statement when clearly the story and presentation in FF series has always been a key factor of its popularity.

Anyway I still think DF gives a more clear picture of the tech than any other site but I must say I lost a TON of respect for them/him.

[ShinRyuHadoken]

''Someone preorder this fool an ambulance for March 16th because this dude is literally going to fall back once he witnesses the graphical might of Sony's God of War III.''

Hahahahah. LOL! Great article! Digital Foundry are corrupt this is the fact.

[UltraNova]

Digital Foundry got obliterated.. They are clearly biased against the ps3.. For all their technical knowledge their prediction about the 360 version of FF13 being superior to the ps3 throws even that down the drain..

Anyway all these face offs were crap to begin with..

[jack_burt0n]

<edit>f**k it. lol

[CrippleH]

Or just stick to Lensoftruth. I might get disagrees thanks to posting Lensoftruth though.

[andron]

This article doesn't prove much bias. The article is in itself biased against DF and makes half-baked accusations and dubious claims. Taking quotes out of context and providing no counter arguments doesn't make this article any better than what it's trying to criticize DF for apparently doing. Not a great argument.

I read all DF articles and find them mostly on point and informative. Are they perfect? No probably not, but overall they have the best PC and console comparisons.

They had already done an article on the PS3 version: http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

The face-off focuses more on the 360 version and the corners cut in porting the game. It's fair pointing out that the port isn't all it could have been, that's what 360 owners would like to know. It could have spent some more time on the differences.

I, myself am a PS3 owner and find these accusations of DF a bit paranoid. They in no way downplay that the PS3 version is the best or it's strengths. If more people read DF whole articles instead of just some quotes this kind of fanboyish accusations wouldn't even be possible...

end rant...lol

[kwyjibo]

He goes in depth to compare the technical aspects between games that are released.

He's not there to debate over whether a feature was cut in development due to multiplatform constraints - which is what this entirely idiotic article is about.

He takes a look at what's in front of him, and makes a fairly objective judgement. Obviously, this isn't good enough for those blinded by pure emotive love for corporation X.

[Evocation]

While I think DF genrally do do a good job, and quite often have praised the PS3 with it's exclusives, like uncharted.
I do sometimes feel the faceoff's are boring as sometimes they use known bad ports, and when a PS3 version does have an advantagse it often feels downplayed.

[DaTruth]

My comment of the original article was pretty much the same... Just the shorter version! But most people were too caught up with the, "in your face"(PS3 fans), and the, "they look the same" damage control(360 fans), to discuss this aspect of the article!

[ProjectVulcan]

Reads like a rant to me. The guy accuses digital foundry of overlooking positive aspects of PS3 games and 360 bias, but fails to himself point out how amazed digital foundry were at powerhouses like uncharted 2 and killzone 2 which got their own dedicated articles, stuffed full of impressed comments about the technology.

[tinybigman]

the only ones who care about comparisons are the idiot fanboys who refuse to be gamers, and hate on consoles they can't afford it seems or refuse to get for some dumba$$ reasons.

im so glad i have all 3 systems as to not give two craps about this stuff. this dude from DF can downplay one aspect and play up another all he wants it wasnt going to stop me from buying the PS3 version the version i was going to buy from day one of its announcement.

have any of you read the comments from that article? its funny how some were talking about failure rates of PS1 and PS2; as i've only had 1 PS1, and 2 PS2.

for those living off of comparsions do yourselves a favor and just move on, and play the games on whatever system you like.

[gaffyh]

What he's saying makes sense, but I don't think the article is very well-written. Most of what he says seems to have nothing to do with his topic, and article is way too long.

All I can really tell from this article is that when an Xbox 360 game is worse, the writer (DF) becomes apologetic, but when a PS3 game is bad, the writer attacks with all his might.

[Dude420]

There's a point in the article when he quotes DF's take on the DVD/Blu-ray formats, then he goes on to say that DF is "hating" on blu-ray. I did not see any hate on blu-ray whatsoever, am I missing something?

Sure he MENTIONED blu-ray, but he just remarks about the storage available on it.

Either I'm missing something, or this is just a stupid paranoid idiot.

[Statix]

The 360 has only "consistently matched the PS3" in terms of multiplatform games--and that is only because the vast majority of multiplatform games are lead-developed on the 360 and ported (sometimes poorly) to the PS3, or because the PS3 version receives less attention than is optimal in a multiplatform development environment. When the reverse is true, and you see a game that first began development on the PS3 (i.e., lead-developed), you see what happens (re: FFXIII).

Oh yeah, and you saying "the 360 is the cheaper system" is fallacious. Microsoft may sell you the actual core system for less than a full-featured PS3, but they more than make up the difference by charging high prices for add-ons and subscription fees (Xbox Live fees, hard drive add-on, wifi adapter). The net result is that a normal Xbox setup ends up costing MUCH, much more than a PS3.

So no, it's not cheaper, but more expensive.

[andron]

Just to prove my previous point about this article being biased and flamebait, I will put some "pro" PS3 comments from the DF comparison to show that this article just ignored any positive PS3 quotes to make it's point:

"This is up against native 720p on the original PlayStation 3 version, again with the same 2x level of MSAA, representing a fairly enormous drop of around a third of the overall resolution. So, are the stories about a reduced resolution on FFXIII 360 true? You betcha."

""Adequate but a touch disappointing" best sums up the Xbox 360 version. Fine edges lose precision, and while the effect is mitigated thanks to the MSAA along with the multitude of post processing effects the engine has at its disposal, the fact is that the lack of resolution can make the 360 build look sub-par. The clean CG look of the PS3 game in motion is unduly compromised, and while it's still a handsome enough title on Xbox 360, it lacks the pristine presentation of its sibling. "

"Unfortunately, when any particular scene ramps up the motion, the encoding solution Square has employed collapses horribly. Detail disappears in a sea of macroblocking and banding, while the PS3 version remains pretty close to pristine thanks to the incredible amount of bandwidth (and thus video information) available."

"So, occasionally fine, sometimes grim: a statement that effectively sums up how much of Final Fantasy XIII looks on Xbox 360 when compared to the PlayStation 3 game, meaning that if you own both consoles, there really is only one choice when it comes to the purchasing decision. "

These are all comments from DF FFXIII comparison. And if you looked at these without the rest of the text you'd think DF was PS3 fanboys. This is the kind of flawed case this article makes and it's just not true....

[blackmagic]

This blogger is quite the conspiracist...

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

This is at best the pot calling the kettle, but I suspect is just the the pot!

Gameonsmash unfortunately only give you one view and there are plenty of articles or even opinions in that one article to support the PS3. The FF XIII article points out where the 360 version could have been better. How is that biased? Clearly the 360 version was a rushed job and developed much later. Even the video encodes was of low quality as many sites have pointed out.

Missing features in a game (the towns)? Many major games reboot and make changes to their core game play, but that suddenly now an issue?

Basically the whole article reeks of fanboyism with no opposing view! Even in some parts of the opinion piece, he quotes big chunks of DF. In fact, so big that his point is lost not to mention proves the opposite! Many of his quotes are PS3 positive!!! Some of his conclusion can only be done by a conspiracist!

I lost all respect for GamesonSmash after reading that article. It was as if a high schooler wrote it!!!

What I want to know is, can this guy write a better article? Show us some technical know how? Why is the 360 inferior as he so adamantly suggest in the first intro (which by the way, sounds very fanboyish)?

Give me something other than DF said this, therefore he meant this i.e. putting words in DFs mouth.

[rexus12345]

It's listed on their profile:
"Digital Foundry is one of only 20 video studios worldwide approved by Microsoft for PC and Xbox 360 high definition video projects"
http://www.digitalfoundry.o...

[Highatus]

Here's the difference.

If DF wanted to call out Square-Enix on the shortcomings of FFXIII on the Xbox360 then they should have done a call out article for it.

Not through a comparison piece in which they did. I just read through this article and DF's Face off article. The article at Games is correct for the most part. The article for the Face off however does come off bias, and for the most part negative not only for the Xbox360 but for the PS3 as well.

Essentially he writes where Square failed to 'optimize' for the 360 in each comparison segment paragraph then in one sentence somehow tries to spin how the PS3 seemingly has crippled the 360 version.

I believe there are two instances where he makes a somewhat postive remark about the PS3 in his comparison. This doesn't make sense in a 'comparison' piece! Three pages of an article and two semi positive remarks in regards to the PS3 version?

Like I said previously; If DF's article was a comparison piece then why is there only two relatively positive statements in the entire article about the PS3 version if it was so superior? Why not more positive on what Square did right on the PS3 version?

DF should have done a comparison piece and a call out piece. Unfortunately DF's comparison comes off negative from the get go, ultimately resulting and coming off as a rant more than an article.

[pixelsword]

I couldn't believe someone finally called them out on that in an article.

Bravo.

I said similar things myself.

I liked some of their stuff, but that FFXIII article was just an apologetic article instead of a critique.

After this game is rated, there will be a lot of back-reading into multiplats to see of the same "standards" are held when one game is declared "better looking" or "better playing" than another.

[exnihilonihilfit]

You really have no point.

Obviously blu-ray is in the same family of storage media as DVD, just as DVD is in the same family as CD. Would you say that DVD isn't a significant improvement over CD? Should the 360 just be running off of CD's? If so, then you can stick to your guns, but the real question is why not choose bluray? The point of any "next gen" storage media is to have two things, more capacity and ideally improved read speed. Unfortunately blu-ray sacrifices some speed, but it makes such a significant improvement on capacity, there's no reason not to switch if you do in fact need more storage. It's clear that you're only making this argument out of some trivial bias, which you don't really need to bother with. What makes for better storage... more storage, duh! The recent spate of triple-A PS3 exclusives has demonstrated in many different ways the advantages of bluray, and none of these recent exclusives have yet been matched in terms of graphical quality by anything on the Xbox. The only game that would appear to come close is the up and coming Alan Wake, which I believe may be able to achieve near UC2 quality, but GOWIII, in my opinion, has already raised the bar, and the PS3's graphical capability has only just begun to be unlocked, thanks in large part to more storage.

@ApocalyPS3

Thanks for quoting the same tired old argument that everyone already knows. I don't even know why you bothered saying that, as no one made any claims about the GPUs. As for qualifying the approach as "backwards" that's an opinion which does not take into account that Sony didn't invest as much in the development of the RSX GPU because they wanted to focus on the Cell CPU. If anything, they were attempting to be forward thinking, as it was their development theory that CPU's will take on a more important role in graphical processing over time. That theory hasn't exactly born fruit, as no other products currently use this approach, but the genius of it is that now PS3 developers have familiarized themselves with techniques for getting around GPU limitations and for optimizing the use of the CPU for graphics processing. This will come in handy in future generations even if powerful GPUs are integrated because a GPU can only do so much, and once you've optimized its use, if you have the knowhow, you can turn to the CPU to add to your pool of resources. That said, the architectural approach of the PS3 will probably not be utilized much in the near future as product developers appear to be sticking with other trends, but that doesn't take away from the PS3's current power. The fact is that the best of the Xbox has not been shown to match the best of the PS3 in terms of graphics so far, and the PS3 has consistently out paced the Xbox in terms of graphical quality of it's exclusives since very early in the generation, e.g. Uncharted 1 looks demonstrably better than Gears of War 2 which came out much later and at the time of its release was considered by many to have the best graphics on Xbox. The processing advantages of the Cell clearly make up for the short comings of the RSX and then some, and though the difference is relatively marginal as compared with the ever versatile PC, PS3 is indisputably more powerful than the Xbox - a fact that has been demonstrated time and again (just look at the fact that the military uses the damn things as super computers).

[baum]

Because according to him, Eurogamer is pretty neutral regarding PS3 and Xbox 360.

[PirateThom]

That guy from Digital Foundary just got his ass handed to him.

[kaveti6616]

I call bull, dude.

I read that entire article, which by the way was poorly written (probably in haste), and the writer basically labels different quotes from Digital Foundry as bashes against the Blu-Ray. And I didn't see it that way at all.

"This failure is compounded by the fact that Square-Enix hasn't even made full use of all the disk space it has available. Around 1GB of storage is left empty on discs one and two of FFXIII, and you have to wonder why all that empty space couldn't have been repurposed for higher bandwidth encoding. Perhaps it's because of the background loading taking place while the cut-scenes play out, but regardless, the hit to quality using Bink is often unacceptably bad."

^^^^

Where in that quote from DF do they actually bash the Blu-Ray?

If you can explain to me how they bash Blu-Ray from that quote I will take back my comment, but I just don't agree with it.

Apparently, DF was just pointed out that a good amount of space on the 360 version's discs was not utilized at all. How is that a bash against Blu-Ray? It sounds to me like DF is just criticizing Square-Enix for what they perceive to be a lousy port.

You know what I don't get? When Bayonetta on the PS3 was inferior to the 360 version, it was painfully obvious that it was just a sh*tty port by Sega. And it definitely was.

But as soon as this multiplatform game ended up looking better on PS3 than 360, the PS3 fanboys said, "What do you expect, you're working with sh*tty hardware." It's kind of a double standard. Sure, the DVD-6.8 that MS uses forced Square Enix to make the game more linear. No objections there, but after doing that, and spreading the game across multiple discs, why did the 360 version still end up looking as bad as it did? Was it merely a space issue or was there a performance cap with the hardware? DF was addressing their concerns and opinions. And this yahoo hastily wrote a crappy, grammatically "Holocaust-ed" opinion piece to bash DF.

Digital Foundry was considered an expert source, and now that it's calling out SE for making a crappy 360 port, the PS3 fanboys are upset. They'll do anything now to discredit Digital Foundry and whoever else disagrees with their opinion.

[Ravage27]

you might want to check out the DF Bayonetta comparison, they were basically treating it like a gift from the gods that took advantage of the 360 architecture. Not one word about the laziness of PG programmers, it was all about how the PS3 couldn't achieve this and that.

Fast forward a few months, you get a similar situation. This time, the entire piece came across as an apologetic push-the-blame damage control written by a sobbing 360 enthusiast. It's all about how SE failed the 360. Instead of acknowledging that the BluRay gave the PS3 an advantage in data-heavy games like ff13, they pulled BS out from their asses with
"The Microsoft XDK ships with a VC1 decoder, giving it the ability to playback video files encoded using technology supported by Blu-ray discs and players. Indeed, movie pirates out there get excellent quality VC1 encodes of Blu-ray movies that manage to fit onto a dual-layer DVD and run from the Xbox 360 dashboard.Decent encoding takes time and effort, but the results can look good - even on challenging material. Combine this with the fact that the game doesn't need the 1080p-sized video the PS3 version boasts" I'm not going to lengthen my already lengthy post explaining the amount of fail in this, check out the neogaf forums for more info.

I'm pretty sure they expected their preferred version to be superior, no doubt they were gutted and are just being anal about it. It seems to literally kill these guys to admit that the PS3 has certain hardware advantages over the 360, the bias has never been clearer.

[kaveti6616]

I don't think it's fair to selectively take out parts of Digital Foundry's analysis and spin it to make them look like fanboys.

I watched the Digital Foundry analysis of the Uncharted 2 trailer when it first was released, and they didn't say anything negative there. They were praising the ambient occlusion techniques and all of that. I understand that one or two parts of the DF analysis may sound anal retentive but figure it this way.

DF says that the 360 version DOES NOT need to boast the 1080p CG of the PS3 version. Now, the guy who wrote this article claims that DF is asserting that Blu-Ray is NOT NEEDED this generation, but all I got from that was that DF was criticizing the fact that the 360 version was 576p and could have been better, but didn't need to be as good as the PS3 version. Basically, it sounds to me like DF would agree that the 360 version would never look as good as the PS3 version, but at the same time, it was still poorly ported. Digitial Foundry's reasoning for this was given by their discovery that 1 gigabyte of space from two of the 3 discs was not utilized.

Sure, all that technical yahoo goes way over my head, but my discerning of the analysis didn't reveal any fanboyism on the part of DF. Now, the whole Bayonetta article is a different issue. I haven't read it, and I would assume that if DF said Bayonetta could never be done properly on PS3 the way it was done on 360, I would be suspicious too.

But maybe DF was saying that it could never be perfectly ported to the PS3 because of the architectural differences between the PS3 and 360. If Bayonetta was designed specifically around the 360 architecture, then I would also claim that a flawless port is not possible. The game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up on the PS3.

[ClownBelt]

"If Bayonetta was designed specifically around the 360 architecture, then I would also claim that a flawless port is not possible. The game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up on the PS3."

And the same can't be said to the PS3 FF 13 version right?

[DelbertGrady]

Mis-take post :)

Anyways, are the BF BC 2 servers up yet?

[Hakimy]

@kaveti6616: I agree with you.the article is indeed poorly written.Not only that but it had some false info as well,especially the Mikami part.why? because Mikami had nothing to do with Bayonetta whatsoever.it's Kamiya's game,not Mikami.He is also not the director of Devil may cry!in fact,you guys should skip the Mikami part in this article cus it's full of false info.
oh and this guy didn't like what DF said about tekken and NG? DF said that Tekken looks better on the ps3 and that NGS2 is the version to pick over NG2 so how is this being called an xbox360 fanboy? the guy just preferred the ps3 version for crying out loud!
also using the word "xbot" shows that writer is the fanboy here.every console has its own advantages.just because you guys are upset that other sites haven't scored the xbox360 version lower than the ps3 version doesn't mean that all media is biased.I'm a ps3 fan,but I think you guys take things waaaaay too seriously :P

[Rock Bottom]

The article was badly written, and most of the point he was trying to pass were pulled out of his fanboy imagination.

Why base anything on such an article, go to the source and see for yourself. Read the DF's Bayonetta article and see how they never mention anything about bad programing and made it look like the PS3 just can't handle Bayonetta, then switch to FFXIII article to see how they bash SE for there bad programing/video encoding.

[ClownBelt]

It's Minami not Mikami. That alone proves your lack of knowledge on the subject.

" All of which seems somewhat at odds with a statement put out by PlatinumGames' Tatsuya Minami. "With Bayonetta, we created the Xbox 360 version of the game first, and then handed off all the data and other assets to SEGA so they could begin the process of porting Bayonetta to the PS3, giving them advice regarding the porting process along the way and overseeing the progress to ensure that the PS3 version would be the best it could be," he wrote."

Yeah he has nothing to do with the game. You got caught with your lying...

@ Rock Bottom

" Read the DF's Bayonetta article and see how they never mention anything about bad programing and made it look like the PS3 just can't handle Bayonetta"

How about you read the Bayoneta DF face off first?

" As it is, the layering of transparencies, the sheer amount of them all over the screen, plus the added overhead of post-processing - it's the sort of thing that you shouldn't really be making central to the game experience in a multi-platform release, because the PS3 hardware just doesn't compete in this regard. Short of completely rewriting the game in the way that Tecmo did for the PS3 rendition of Ninja Gaiden 2, Bayonetta is always going to have problems. Even if the overdraw (transparency upon transparency) levels were reduced, the sheer amount of effects on-screen at any given point is never going to favour the RSX.

So, if the conversion work is disappointing, how about the game itself as a whole? It's fair to say that the performance you see in the PS3 demo is pretty much akin to the game running on its very best terms: it can get a whole lot worse. "

They never even criticized Sega for the bad port. They just kept rambling how Sega did all their best and the PS3 has the problem. This is not the case on FF 13 now is it?

Edit. Before I get all the disagrees. I just want to point out that I don't disagree with their comparison or all the tech crap they can spew since I don't know that stuff. I just don't like how he can blame the system on one game(Bayoneta) then once the other system got the problem(FF 13), he blames the developer for it.

@below

Yeah my bad.

[Hakimy]

@ClownBelt: wrong dude.the article talks about shinji mikami.it didn't even mention minami at all!now who shows lack of knowledge on the subject? ;)

[Rock Bottom]

WTF!!

So you try to prove me wrong and then you go and say:

"I just don't like how he can blame the system on one game(Bayoneta) then once the other system got the problem(FF 13), he blames the developer for it."

Which is exactly what I was trying to say?... You're weird.

Let me put my previous comment in simple(er) words.

DF has double standards, 'cause:
DF --> Bayonetta --> PS3 can't handle it.
DF --> FFXIII --> Bad programing from SE.

Am I clear now?

[Information Minister]

I was going to write a comment exposing just how differently DF treated Bayonetta/PS3 and FFXIII/360, but I see Ravage27 and Clownbelt got ahead of me. And then Rock Bottom pretty much nailed it:

"DF has double standards, 'cause:
DF --> Bayonetta --> PS3 can't handle it.
DF --> FFXIII --> Bad programing from SE."

The simple fact that we have yet to see a single website giving a lower score to the 360 version of FFXIII (even those who had no problem doing it with Bayonetta on PS3) is proof enough of double standards. How's that for a conspiracy theory?

[Darrius Cole]

I read the Bayonetta face-off, the Ninja Gaiden 2 / Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 face-off, and the Final Fantasy XIII face-off, all before this opinion piece was written.

Ravage27 is correct.

In the Bayonetta face-off, as well as the NG2/NGS2 face-off the DF guy did say plainly that the games were doing things that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to replicate on the PS3 without re-writing the game. In the case of NGS2 he went on to say that re-writing the game code was exactly what they did. In contrast, with FFXIII he never said or implied that that what FFXIII was trying to do was close to impossible to replicate on the 360.

I think that :

1. The DF guy appears to have a slight lean toward the 360 (emphasis on SLIGHT). That lean probably is more as a programmer than as a gamer and I don't think its enough to outweigh or significantly color his analysis. I suspect that he is simply more familiar with 360 or 360-like programming, and as a result sees more options when trying to do something on a 360. By contrast he is probably less familiar with PS3 or PS3-like programming and simply doesn't see as many options with bringing 360 code to PS3.

I don't mean that as a knock on him. All reports say that PS3 coding is harder than 360 coding. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, he seems to be more comfortable with the notion that "porting 360 code to PS3 is hard" than with the notion that "porting PS3 code to 360 is hard."

With Bayonetta to PS3 he was like "porting this would be almost impossible because...(no good option).

With NG2 to NGS2(PS3) he was like "porting NG2 to PS3 would give you nightmares because..., they were right to re-code the game from scratch".(again, no good option. He says starting with a blank slate is better than porting).

With FFXIII he was like "had they taken time with the port they could have done X, Y, or Z." (He sees options)

2a. I think the unfairly good treatment of FXXIII(360) is because of the money behind the game. Both from Square-Enix and from Microsoft. With Bayonetta the DF guy says its hard to recommend Bayonetta PS3 to people who have NGS2 and DMC4 as options. It seems clear to me that Mass Effect 2 is a better option than FFXIII to someone who has a 360, but he makes no mention of that. Why not? Must be the money.

2b. Likewise, the other review sites are NOT criticizing FF13(360) for looking worse than FF13(PS3). Why not? Every other game got criticized in words and review scores for this; why is FF13 so special? My answer: the money.

2c. FF13 releases in the two days. Reviewers seem to be avoiding it like plague. It only has 16 reviews as of today (March 07, 2010, 1:00PM CST). Saying nothing at all is better than saying something bad I guess. It also has a higher metacritic on 360 than PS3 (83 vs. 82). How is this possible for a port that has been verified to be inferior by essentially every measure? (That is not an exaggeration or a figure of speech, but a fact.) My answer = the money.

[GOS_SAND-MAN]

i do have to say,, a lot of the reports on some of these articles are really dumb

[stonecold1]

this site shpould be closed oh well the bots got owned better luck next time folks these bias site should be closed or black listed

[Droid Smasha]

give it up there is NOTHING you can do about it

and it has exclusive advertising in the US and its on THREE DISCS and its STILL NOT getting scored worse than the ps3 version

I know you roaches are PISSED hahahahaha

[raztad]

This is not nice bots. I'm temporary banned to the Open Zone because I used the word "xtards" w/o making any personal reference. Talk about x-mods controlling this site. At the same time trolls like Bungie/we won/etc etc has full access to the Gamer zone. Good work. Raztad will be online again in a couple of days.

OT:

Read this article comparing Forza 3 and GT5PROLOGUE and how Digital Foundry does DAMAGE CONTROL on GT5PROLOGUE trouncing Forza 3.

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

[jack_burt0n]

Article gets an amen from me.

[Ravage27]

great read, i didn't know about Shinji Mikami's history of bad blood with Sony before this. What a sore loser :/

[Ravage27]

"Bayonetta wasn't just developed first on Xbox 360, it was clearly designed to exploit the architectural advantages unique to that platform - the things that a PlayStation 3 port can't duplicate without some very significant performance impediments."

"Just enough of the magic of PlatinumGames' insane Xbox 360 original has made it across to make it an enjoyable experience, but it's still a bit like watching Star Wars on DVD and then moving across to VHS; once you've been spoiled with the superior version, you can never go back. It's also difficult to recommend the game in this state when PS3 owners have the likes of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Devil May Cry 4 as potential alternatives. They might not have the sheer conceptual ingenuity of Bayonetta, but they don't have the compromises either."

The amount of hypocrisy in this is too much for me to handle....i'm literally in tears right now. Good job M$, i don't know how you guys did it but you successfully infiltrated xbots zealots into all the major media outlets.

[mastiffchild]

Hang on! Everyone goes on about bias this and MS infiltration that and it's way off the mark. for a start say England are playing Japan at football. the game is played and it's tight with England scoring the winner from a hotly debated and controversial late penalty. how do we imagine the game will be reported in England as opposed to Japan? Exactly, nbecause the main readership of each nations media will be of one mind(in general-that of supporting it's country)it's media will reflect that by sklightly playing towards it. the Japanese report would be full of "bad luck for Japan" or even claims of an "ill deserved England victory" and maybe even a "biased ref". The English reportrs would concentrate more on the result, the nerve and bravery of Lampard(or whoever)for taking said pressured penalty and also praise the England defence for allowing a win with their clean sheet, no?

Well, imo, you get a similar effect these days in the gaming press and the only reason it sticks out at all is because it's only been the past few years when a western console has been a serious contender and, most importantly, had a console with a lead over the PS3 in it's home hemisphere. This means the main group of readers for western gaming sites is 9/10 in English language sites(which we'e on about-and think of the fact 360 is most dominant in? Yes, England and America where all these sites are from(give or take a few Oz/Can sites)the 360 gamer. Under these circumstances it's just wise for any media outlet wanting to keep it's readers and therefore keep selling adverts to stay in profit to be a little softer towards the 360 as that's the angle it's readers will, in the main, appreciate most. Should the PS3 ever draw level with the 360 in the US/UK we'll see a change but not before because of the fact the 360 is a western product carrying some weight in all this too(for evidence look at how Edge consistently favours anything made in the UK).

Certainly, within this framework of largely tacitly understood rules within journalism you'll see the odd one or two who have a personal issue or axe to grind and with the 360 dominating English language publications it's voices of that bent more likely to sneak out from under the blanket of supposed objectivity we expect, maybe unfairly, from our writers. Some of the things intimated at DF, esp since the pairing with EG, have been suspect in my eyes but I always take the things I've spoken of into my mind when reading anything where the "home town boy" might be a relevant issue. Whatever, and however badly wrtten this article is, we shouldn't ignore the way DF is less ready to praise devs for doing well on PS3(says SE are rubbish/lazy here) while didn't even pull Platinum over the coals for not making the PS3 port themselves FFS-which is the glaring issue with Bayonetta apart from the fact that even the issues with that port(meaning I could actually, for once, tell a difference with my own eyes at some times)were blown well and truly out of proportion. On that occasion they were worthy of note, certainly, and 99% of the time they just aren't(another reason I don't like DF OR LoT is that there's a pressure on them to find a winner or loser even when there really might not be one-they need them to justify what they do and that's not a great starting point for something which NEEDS to be pretty much totally objective. Ally that to the fact they also have to serve their 360 heavy readership and you have potential for problems in my eyes with things being blown up one way and suppressed a bit in the other)-that said, I chose to play Bayonetta on PS3(and had the choice of either for free)because I ddn't enjoy DMC4 with the 360 pad and didn't really notice anything much while playing the game. No it isn't as slick as the 360 game and the loads were a little long but the slowdown was a lot rarer and less offensive than made out by the press. Same is probably true of FF13 on 360-you won't really care once you're playing it and other concerns are more important to a lot of gamers than the resolution as long as the game sytill looks and plays pretty well. What got me, though, was the difference in attitude between the way DF dealt with the two games and ports. Full of praise for the 360 version of Bayonetta and Platinum but little praise for SE for the PS3 version of FF13-what gives? The intimation was that the PS3 hardware wasn't up to the task for Bayonetta(a daft claim when there's tons of technically more demanding games already out on the PS3 in all honesty)but that SE were solely, and not DVD or the lack of an HDD in every 360, were for the 360's issues with FF13. Also think:SE are really close with MS this generation and would they want to upset them if they didn't have to? Anyway, it's the difference in tone and attitude that gets people's back's up here and leaves the guy open to question as a result.Whether he's really got issues with Sony I couldn't say as you'd need to ask him but he does seem to be going further than what I described as unavoidable in serving huis readership at the start of this post. Maybe he just feels the pressure of keeping those hits coming to sell those ads more keenly than most and doesn't even think about it, IDK.

Sorry for the long post(no offence meant by it and none taken by me for anyone wanting, understandably, to skip it! Certainly, you people must have better things to do with your time than listen to my garbled idiocy!)but I really feel people see actual bias where there is none because they don't fully know how a site/mag needs to behave just to keep going. there are things affecting every 'paper or mag yu read in the form of pressures, seen and unseen, coming from the ads sales department, those counting sales and/or traffic to help sell those ads and so on-a site n the west that favoured the PS3 when most of it's readers are still 360 gamers would have a tough life, no? That's all i'm saying and that this slight leaning is natural and forgiveable and is likely the other way round in Japan(or would be if the 360 was serious competition out there, I can't be sure how they view the full world picture). We should only point it out where it goes a little too far(which is with individuals rather than sites in pretty much any case I can think of)and there's good enough reason for people to be sus about this fella in my opinion. Edge is the one site/mag thast I wooryy about and that's purely nbecause of those stats surrounding PS3 exclusives averaging well below their meta score on that site when Ninty and MS games really don't, and when they do not nearly by the same margin. Hoewwever, Edge already take the whole supporting their home devs thing way too far so them being the only real suspects I can think of with a real axe to grind against Sony we're not doing that badly, are we?

Not, imo, and you'll always have the odd writer with a grudge, for whatever reason, but as long as we realise, point it out when we see it and understand where they come from even that iosn't much of a problem for us gamers. We just need to be a little more savvy about the pressures mags and sites operate under. Really, MS wouldn't, imo, need to bverv say or ask for any particular treatment from a US/UK site right now with their gamers making the bulk of the readership and their ads being important to sites as well. There's plenty of pressure there already without them having to be sordid and both they, and Sony will understand this perfectly and have worked with it for years and years in different fields.

Sorry, again, but I don't like the idea people have that journalists are being bought and sold when it's far more likely to be what I've suggested-and that's pretty much unavoidable in a profit dependent site/publication. My opinion, anyway, and LoT/DF make WAY too much of comparisons to start with-if you need a program to find the screen tears isn't that, y'know, telling you something?

[Ravage27]

"Well, imo, you get a similar effect these days in the gaming press and the only reason it sticks out at all is because it's only been the past few years when a western console has been a serious contender and, most importantly, had a console with a lead over the PS3 in it's home hemisphere."

This is an interesting POV that never occurred to me before...anyway i like your England VS Japan football match analogy :)

[nephalti]

nice article.

[fear88]

If you are going to point out whats wrong with any editor or article, provide technical facts contrary to the claims made.

[kwyjibo]

But it's a lot easier, and gets a lot more hits if he just makes emotive claims over things that Digital Foundry doesn't say.

"Why doesn't Digital Foundry recommend other RPGs?"
Because that's not their mandate, or goal.

"Why doesn't Digital Foundry mention the linearity of lack of towns?"
It's not DF's mandate to second guess why design decisions were made. They're comparing the final product.

"Why doesn't Digital Foundry say how awesome the Blu-Ray is all the time, but instead talks about Blu-Ray."
Because it's not written for Haipa-Sonikku's retarded audience. There's an assumption that the reader already knows that the uncompressed Blu-Ray version is going to be better. The question that Digital Foundry has raised, is a lot more important - why was the compression so poor on the 360 version? Why was Bink chosen? Why is there still space on the disk?

"Why did Digital Foundry cover ApocalPS3 and not RROD?"
Because it wasn't around when RROD was a relevant issue. Because RROD was a fundamental hardware issue that Digital Foundry did not have to expertise to address. Whereas a leap year calculation bug, happening in the present, they can.

"His comparison of the Xbox 360 version of Ninja Gaiden II versus the PS3 version of Ninja Gaiden Sigma II is straight garbage"
No it wasn't. Another indication of Gamesonsmash absolutely baseless accusations without any supporting evidence.

Anyone reading Digital Foundry's analysis, wanting to see which version was better, would clearly and unequivocally concluded that the Playstation 3 version was better.

Digital Foundry have clearly done their job successfully.

[andron]

It's sad Digital Foundry get stamped as fanboys just because people take badly written articles with half-truths like this seriously.

Sure it's easier than actually reading DF articles and discovering that half the claims in this article are false or skewered, but it certainly doesn't help the inane fanboys war any.

N4G are 2 steps away from becoming an full blown fanboy site with somebody claiming Sony or MS actually are Aliens plotting world domination through their consoles. Probably in a gamsonsmash or similar blog article with the quotes to prove it...

[macalatus]

My fellow Sony gamer, finally an article that exposes the gaming media lies!!

Sony Gamers Lead the Way!!

[Sigh]

on purchasing Vanquish.

[Ravage27]

it's well-written and backed up with facts

[commodore64]

No, it's just another ps3 fanboy blog.
I read the artcle very carefully and the author sounds like a very, very angry kid, who is venting his spleen!

It's a heavily pro ps3/anti 360 article, which ignores the evidence of over 100 inferior ps3 games.
Bayonetta, is only one game out of many, many more that simply run better on the 360 - a point conveniently ignored by the author.

I am not saying the 360 is better than the ps3, but I am saying that the 360 and ps3 are about on par.
The games this generation have proven it.

For every KZ2, UC2, MGS4 there's about ten inferior ps3 multiplats.
In addition, the 360 continues to push the boundaries with titles like Halo reach and Alan wake.
From recent reports, Alan wake looks to be on par, or better, than anything seen yet on the ps3.

I wish the ps3 fanblogs would give up the proclamations of messianic ps3 worship.

Let's face facts.
The ps3 hardware design is now over 5 years old!
The 360 hardware design is now about 5.5 years old!
SOme skilled developers will weave magic and eke out marginally more performance from one or the other console, but facts are facts.

The differences between the 360 and ps3 are negligible.
You know it's true - angry, ranting fanblogs notwithstanding.

[WengYong]

While I disagree with the article I do sorta see where hes coming from. While the passages he used did make Digital Foundry seem fanboyish they generally weren't, when comparing Ninja Gaiden they bought up the strengths of the PS3 version also, and IMO it looked far better than the 360 version.

commodore64 on the other hand, you say the 360 isn't any better than the PS3, yet you continually bash the PS3 other articles. Is this because you don't like PS3 fanboys?

And to all 360 fanboys, take a teaspoon of cement and toughen up. How long did yous diss the PS3 saying its crap and its doomed? And PS3 fanboys for a bunch of so called "Mature" gamers you look pathetically immature.

I believe my n4g days are numbered. This fanboyism is seriously making me sick

[OrganicMachine]

"In short Digital Foundry's case is that Final Fantasy XIII is inferior on Xbox 360 because of Square Enix and not the hardware. However Bayonetta is superior on Xbox 360 not because of PlatinumGames but the "superiority" of the hardware. "

[Kalowest]

Maybe he meant Superiority as in how easy it is to program for the 360, and not superiority as in the 360 is better then the PS3.

[XabiTheHumble]

@KaloWest come on man stop beating around the bush how does superiority and easier to program for even relate? lol

[hellraiserpop]

They clearly meant the 360's architecture is better for some things than on the ps3, and they're hard to achieve on the PS3 without massive changes to the code. They never said 360>PS3. What a sensationalist article <.<

[edhe]

No.

They did a poor job of compression for the 360, using bink, flat bitrate and wasting disc space. Bayonetta is better on the 360 because it was coded for the architecture.

So in both points it was up to the developer's efforts. Nothing to do with hardware.

[FamilyGuy]

The bad compression of the cgi scenes is 1 point. We get why the are sub-hd but why is the rest of the game?

They conserved disc space by heavily compressing the movies on the 360 version but why was the in-game sub-hd as well? It might have been for parity but cgi cut scenes don't look like the in-game graphics in the first place so what was it? Could a lower res in-game actually save space too or what?

They should've just bit the bullet and added another disc or two and used the original check M$ cut them to go multi to pay for the added cost.

[edhe]

No there's no god reason for reduction in gameplay resolution as that isn't affected by by disc space.

[Silly gameAr]

Woah. Very well written. Not much else to add other than...damn.

Well, people have been saying for a while watch how people react differently toward a bad Bayonetta port and a bad FF13 port.

About time someone tries to call these guys out on their bull. Need more of that.

[Jeff257]

Agreed. We are now in the time where the PS3 is really showing its power and also why Sony went with Blu Ray. As Sony continues to put out one amazing title after another the bias in the media will continue to be called out.

[Kalowest]

One thing i do know is LO is better than the bad FFXIII port, so i'm not going to put that port next to LO, and buy the superior FFXIII for my PS3

[Romeoisburning]

The article started out fine but it turned into a bunch of whining by the end.

[Noob]

He studied that fukin site. Serious ownage here folks. You don't see this type sh!t everyday.

[wpggamer]

Except for grammar and punctuation. He also seems to know very little about video encoding. VC1 is actually used a lot on bluray movies, along with h.264. The bit rates are variable, but both codecs are comparable in quality. And mpeg4 is NOT h.264. But he did copy and paste from a web page. So I guess these days that passes for "doing your homework".

[Noob]

He exposed Digital Foundry's double standard. Nothing is wrong with the comparisons they conduct, only the way they convey it to everyone.

They need to show us the facts and let us draw our OWN conclusions from it and leave out their opinions. I don't think anyone would be screaming biased if they did that.

[wpggamer]

A review without opinion. They could just rate everything, blank out of ten. Fill in your own blank. That's too funny. Fact is, he does twist the words of the review. For the bayonetta review, he clearly stated that the code was obviously optimized for performance on the 360, and that caused the ps3 to perform poorly. Whereas, he clearly states that the video was coded poorly for ff13 on the 360. He's saying the same thing. They are both powerful machines, or were at launch. But they are different in architecture. I guess that is too much for this kid to understand. Anybody who thinks either machine is leaps and bounds above the other is a foolish fanboy. So there will never be a convincing argument either way for them. My beef with this article is that it really is poorly written, and full of opinion, not fact. Written by a child, who doesn't have a good grasp of the english language, let alone the technical knowledge to state an informed opinion. At least, use grammar and spelling checks commonly available on all modern word processors. And please do more than a half hour of 'research'.

[Kalowest]

I'm okay with DF, because i read up on both of the systems hardware, and some of the stuff they say is actually true.

[devilhunterx]

pwned!

[Tilian]

This is gaming journalism to be proud of. Made my goddamn day.

Bad 360 game = crappy developer
Bad PS3 game = crappy PS3 hardware / Sony

I wish there were more like him who point out how ridiculous this is.

[Kalowest]

Well early-on this gen it was because of the way Sony made the PS3, and some Devs still don't know how to develop for it or just don't care and make a bad port, either-way ports are getting better for both systems.

[FamilyGuy]

Bad 360 game = crappy developer
Bad PS3 game = developer took advantage of the 360 hardware and the PS3 had no chance of getting an equal port.

SE definitely took advantage of some aspects of what the ps3 has to offer but what really shouldn't be ignored is the fact that having a 360 version (crappy port or not) still had a huge effect on the games outcome. linearity is not a coincidence.

[BYE]

I'm sick of the gaming media spreading 360 propaganda.

Articles like this are a step in the right direction. Thank you Gamesonsmash!

[Figboy]

that was some genuine, serious ownage handed to Digital Foundry.

it's been proven time and time again that the 360 often gets free passes, while the PS3 is put under the scrutiny knife.

i applaud the writer of this article for not just calling out double standards and hypocrisy in the gaming press (specifically, Digital Foundry), but by, most importantly, backing it up with clear examples as to why he came to his conclusion.

many fanboys, on any console, very rarely back up their claims with fact/evidence. it usually boils down to a "well, it's true because i SAID SO."

it's impossible to be 100% objective, but i'm a firm believer that you can be damn close to that if you actually bother to try.

EVERYONE seemed to blame the Playstation 3 hardware for the poor Bayonetta port (which wasn't the train wreck they made it out to be).

but no one wants to blame the 360 hardware for the poor Final Fantasy XIII port (also, not the train wreck people are making it out to be).

his comment: "In short Digital Foundry's case is that Final Fantasy XIII is inferior on Xbox 360 because of Square Enix and not the hardware. However Bayonetta is superior on Xbox 360 not because of PlatinumGames but the "superiority" of the hardware."

sums it up PERFECTLY. it's right on the money. and this mentality is applied to nearly EVERY multi-platform game that performs better on the 360 than the PS3.

but when it's the other way around, it's ALWAYS the developers fault that they didn't make a better 360 version, not the 360's limited hardware.

Final Fantasy XIII, like the upcoming RAGE, has had it's design altered 100% because of the Xbox 360.

PC and PS3 gamers are getting less than they could because of the 360.

at this point, 5 years into this generation, that's not speculation. it's FACT.

the 360 is most certainly a quality gaming platform, but the excuses and free passes either need to stop, or be applied to the PS3 as well. there's no balance and fairness this generation.

[mrmikew2018]

Some people criticizing the article for grammar and other issues, are ignoring the facts that were stated in the article. In simpler terms DF contradicted themselves, period.

[seifer085]

"Journalists" bias always suck.

[Ravage27]

to carry over to the next gen, regardless when that happens

[DigitalAnalog]

Couldn't said it better myself. This article has all the aspects of a "flamebait" but as you can see, nearly none challenge this article to the table. EXCELLENT WORK GAMESONSMASH!

It's really sad I'm beginning to see DF and Shinji on a different light now. GOOD CALL!

-End statement

[sashimi]

Digital Foundry just had their face smashed in.hahaha that just rich.

[InfiniteRetro77]

LOL destroyed!!!!!!!!

[3sq]

Digital Fraud fixed. :P

[Knightrid808]

That article was b-e-a-utiful.

[bviperz]

DF will be careful of how they post their future face-offs now that someones shined a different light on to it. Will make future face-offs very interesting...

[Bordel_1900]

I always thought the way Richard Leadbetter wrote sounded biased.

Thanks for the proof, good article.

[AstroBloo]

About half way through I couldn't help but think, "So what?"

This whole ridiculous console war thing, all of it, from every side, from all angles is both a laughable and miraculous waste of time. And the worst part ( for me anyway ) is that I'm part of the problem. I give these fools hits, and thus a reason to exist and consequently add fuel to the gaming fire. I'm not even singling out this particular site, I'm just saying in general, I could learn more important life lessons on any one of the thousands of internet porn sites, than what any of these monkey poo flinging articles, shouting from the highest roof tops, whose virtual d1ck is bigger than the others. Even though what this guy says is valid... So? And this made life better...how, exactly for me? These articles come off as the literary equivalent of a Halo tea bag. Just adolescent journalists looking to humiliate one another by dropping their balls on each others faces. Boring, and I'm done. Never another hit from me.

[rezzah]

And theres thhose who shout out false "truth" about what is right or not. This article is simply showing how biased another journalist is towards a system and a developer. If this article didnt pop up, many would still belive the lies to be truth.

Better to be in the light than the dark.

[aCHU]

K I L L Z O W N E D!!!!!

[rezzah]

It bashes the ignorant with the truth =D

Still complaining? wait until March 16.

[edhe]

What a load of crap. Is this guy going out of his way to make up circumstantial evidence to try to discount years of hard work?

I'd like to see rich counter this.../off to email.

[mrmikew2018]

Don't take to seriously bro, it's just games. It has nothing to do with DF "so-called" hard work and just they got expose. Why do you care so much?

[Taker_129]

Anyboby with a brain can see how bias the media is against the ps3, It all started with Sony's E3 Conference and Sony's comments on how they could sale ps3s even if it played bricks, how people should just get a second job to buy one, and how rumble was last gen tech. Those comments were PR mistakes on Sony's part but the media just refuses to let it go. Sony has been doing so much this generation trying to push this industry foward and they should be applaued for their hard work. They have published some of the most unique games this generation such as Flower, LBP, Heavy Rain, Fat Princess, folklore, etc. And also some of the best graphical games of this generation, Uncharted, Killzone, GOW3, Heavy Rain, Motorstorm, etc. So Sony should be respected for their contribution to this industry and not dishonored like they have been these past three years. And the same goes for Microsoft and their contributions to this industry. I just wish we could all let the Hate go and focus on what we all Love the most "GAMES"

GamesonSmash did what they do best, "SMASHED" those mofos!!!! LOL!!!!!

[mrmikew2018]

Preach my brother!!

[unworthyBOZO]

We need more articles like this on n4g.

[Obama]

I am so sick of Media bias towards the ps3. That's all I can say :/

[Neurotoxin]

I dont think theres any news site that is totally unbiased.

[Sir_Ken_Kutaragi_]

...Micro$oft to BRAINWASH people!!! ;-D

+ I don't really give a T0SS what any internet site says really. How can you trust someone on the internet???
(99% of them are really Micro$oft, xBox 360, xBox LIVE people living in their 2005 BUBBLE!!!) ;-D

THE TRUTH WILL 'WIN' IN THE END;)

[Def Warrant]

I just believe alot of these so called gaming journos are seriously deluded and misguided. It like no matter how much the ps3 continues to prove it's superiority with it's exclusives, they still have it carved in their heads that both consoles are equal. I hate to inform these folks but Uncharted 1 is still yet to be matched on the competitors console.

[Redlight]

The article reads like the ranting of a overprotective fanboy. It's just the type of pathetic and paranoid reasoning that has given this site, and PS3 fanboys in general, such a terrible name.

Digital Foundry is not biased. If you think they are based on the linked article, then you are an idiot.

[DigitalAnalog]

"In short Digital Foundry's case is that Final Fantasy XIII is inferior on Xbox 360 because of Square Enix and not the hardware. However Bayonetta is superior on Xbox 360 not because of PlatinumGames but the "superiority" of the hardware."

Double Standards?

Unbiased?

FUD?

-End statement

[dragonelite]

Dam never thought this in the face offs they are more 360 biased because most games have the upperhand on 360 with multiplats but nothing to say that the ps 3 version sucks ass.

I think the writer hasn't read the killzone 2,uncharted 2 and soon i think god of war 3 articles complete 3+ pages of info you wont find from hiphopgamer thats a guy who is ps 3 fan.

[aaronisbla]

the face off read somewhat like he was letdown the 360 version wasn't the best of the 2. He went into detail on things but left out some other important things thats been mentioned a lot lately.

I think this article brings some strong arguments but could have been written a bit better so nay sayers wouldnt pin point fanboyish overtones.

[tudors]

.

[mrmikew2018]

DF along with some other major websites just expose themselves with the release and review of FF XIII. Let's be real for just a second, if it was the other way around DF and every one else what rip apart the PS3 version for being the so called inferior version. It would've been the usual, sites would've deducted points, DF would've suggested the superior version, the Xbox 360, etc. But it didn't, instead them being the so called professionals that they are and show that same strong criticism towards the 360 they didn't. Instead they try to defend it, by saying something along the lines that it wasn't the 360 fault but the developers. LMAO!! Come on guys, this is straight comedy.

[chidori666]

PWNDS IN 360 FANBOYS!

[gamer7804]

This article is obviously not up to the task, While digital foundry definitely draws conclusions from facts that are far reaching, they at least have facts, this article is more technically deficient than digital foundry's.

[napoleon_ist]

xbox fanboys crying out because they got an inferior version of FFXIII. they wanted a superior version so bad that now they are accusing digital foundry of bias.

however when digital foundry's face off comparisons said some multiplatform xbox versions -like ghostbuster or GTAIV- were better no one of them complained... now just look at them! running in corridors shouting noooooooo! chill kids, thats life. ninja gaiden 2 is also 576p on xbox360 while it is 720p on ps3. now just face it, reality.

[Tito08]

It got more stuff for the player to keep going back to it, and some fanboys coming with the fact that the 360 version is bloodier means it's the superior version, that's very lame... By the way, I like the article, it really showed DF's true colors, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one noticing that.... Microsoft settled the new industry "standards", that's why they came to market first, so the whole media can attack Sony and affect PS3 sales.... It's odvious why they chosed DVD over HD-DVD and say Blu-Ray isn't needed, so they could sell the game's missing content as DLC, that's the case with Lost Planet 2, all of that content can fit into one Blu-Ray, but because that content can't fit into the 360 disc, they have to do the same to the PS3 version, so they can conclude with saying both versions are the same or by industry "standards" the 360 version is superior!!!!!

[table]

To be honest, I've always found digital foundry to be very unreliable. From a nuetral perspective, they seemed to always look to play down the ps3 every time I checked them out when their news hit n4g. Their evidence has always contradicted what others thought. It has taken too long for people to pick up on this.

[Redlight]

They're not 'looking down' on the PS3 version, they're simply reporting their findings.

Up till now, many multiplatform games have been inferior on the PS3, what do you expect them to do? Lie about it?

After reading their report there is no doubt that they think the PS3 version is superior and they detail that clearly. This ridiculous claim that they're biased because they weren't negative enough is bordering on insane. What did you want them to do, burn an effigy of Ballmer and sacrifice a goat?

The PS3 is a good strong machine and it has the best version of FFXIII, just like Digital Foundry said. No just stop whining and STFU.

[DigitalAnalog]

Unless something like this appears.....

"In short Digital Foundry's case is that Final Fantasy XIII is inferior on Xbox 360 because of Square Enix and not the hardware. However Bayonetta is superior on Xbox 360 not because of PlatinumGames but the "superiority" of the hardware."

-End statement

[CobraKai]

I find that DF tends to praise the 360 when they have better multiplatform games. But when the PS3 performs better, they won't wholly give credit where credit is due.

[stuntman_mike]

I think these comparison stuff is sh*t anyway. also its well been know in the gaming media that Richard Leadbetter has always been a TWAT!
even in his C&VG days.

[Karum]

Digital Foundry just got e-raped

[i3eyond the Circle]

Facts backed by people that haven't touched the game.

....If you buy it for Xbox 360 and feel you are playing a last gen game and not playing one of the most BEAUTIFUL PORTS ever this generation then you weren't a gamer to begin with.

[RageAgainstTheMShine]

M$ wants to own everything! specially YOU wether you are a PS3, 360 or Wii FB. It doesn't matter.
The writings all over the walls.
M$ just wanna waste its overflowing wealth on crap and avoid the IRS. Gone are the days when good gaming makes a console king. Sony is atleast doing it this way but M$ totally destroyed the good standing of video gaming by buying people left and right to make us think they are doing good.
M$ has destroyed video gaming with its unethical practices.

[MiltonZep]

The Digital Foundry blogger got caught slippin!!

Just wanted to make a funny; I'll leave now...

[waljaber]

quote (As obvious as it is, that website is no other than the "experts" at Eurogamer's Digital Foundry. Digital Foundry has been in existence for only one reason and that's downplaying the PlayStation 3)
we know that from the beginning.

[SDF Repellent]

DF comments on popular ps3 games…

Killzone 2 : “This series of features is all about explaining the technical decisions made by Guerilla Games in producing one of the most visually distinctive and exciting looking games ever produced. If you just want to enjoy the game and aren’t that interested in the magic behind the illusion.”

“Guerilla Games have produced a technical showcase that maximises the strengths of the PS3 hardware and minimises the weaknesses by factoring in the system’s limitations into both the engine design and crucially, the artistic direction. There’s nothing else on any other system that looks quite like it, and in motion virtually everything is superbly realised.”

“In short then, it’s fair to say that Killzone 2 is absolutely unmissable, but it’s equally fair to say that it is in no way revolutionary; often predictable and occasionally, even a little monotonous. There’s very little that’s new and surprising in what it does, but in terms of the look, feel and execution, it’s easily the best shooter available on console.”

Uncharted 2 : “Naughty Dog’s coding pedigree is pretty much beyond compare, so when the company releases first video of its second generation PlayStation 3 title, it deserves some special coverage. We’ll make no bones about it – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is probably my favourite game of this generation. The graphics, the gameplay, the technology, the script, the sense of wonder at every new corner – playing this through over Christmas 2008 remains one of a treasured gaming experience.”

“And despite the arrival of great-looking games like Gears of War 2 and Killzone 2, Uncharted remains a technical marvel that has still yet to be equalled.”

Guess this guy is right. DF hates ps3 and sony.

It is a Worldwide Conspiracy according to PS3 Fanboys. LOL

[FamilyGuy]

In those cases the games were PS3 exclusives. Had they been multi-platform who knows what his reasoning might have been to why one version feel short of the other.

You make a valid point but at the same time can you find a multi-platform title where he praises the PS3 version?

[IHateYouFanboys]

better question for you: can you find a multi-platform title where the PS3 DESERVES to be praised?

[DigitalAnalog]

Answer for you:

NGS2
Dragon Age: Origins

OH
OH

And FINAL FANTASY XIII.....

-End statement

[IHateYouFanboys]

i wasnt aware that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 was on the 360? when did this come out? lol

Dragon Age, they did praise the PS3 version:

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

" It's definitely the case that the PS3 version has a collection of small technical advantages. Texture filtering is superior, the lighting model looks a bit more accurate, and the depth-of-field effect is more accomplished too (even compared to the PC version). Judging Dragon Age: Origins in terms of pure image quality, the PS3 version is the console version to have."

FFXIII, well we all just saw that they straight up say the PS3 version is better.

so 3 multiplatform titles out of how many hundred look better on the PS3? and you wonder why Digital Foundry dont often praise the PS3 versions of multiplatform games? lol

[RageAgainstTheMShine]

Basic: Mix the truth with a little lie here, there & everywhere.

This is how you should see digital Foundry. It will be too obvious if they blatantly do it upfront and center, right?

You should look at the big picture not just bits and pieces.

DF puts on a facade that is "generally" nice & respectable.

Yes they cannot touch the exclusives for obvious reasons.

Yeah DF knows better to "hit where it hurts"- multi platforms!
That is where M$oney is.

Man you should do your homework.

It will take more than that to fool. PS3 Vigilantes are the best at what they do - The best Offense is Defense.

[DigitalAnalog]

Since you know the answers why did you bother asking the question?

-End statement

[IHateYouFanboys]

lol

i asked the question to prove a point. when there are only a tiny handful of multi-platform games that actually are better on the PS3, and Digital Foundry have already said as much, asking the question of ' can you find a multi-platform title where he praises the PS3 version?' and using it to infer that Digital Foundry simply choose to not give the PS3 praise when it deserves it, is entirely misleading.

when it deserves the praise, it gets the praise. if it doesnt deserve the praise for more than 3 games out of 300+, Digital Foundry arent to blame for not giving out praise on more than 3 games.

[Redgehammer]

another article that wasted minutes of my life that I will never be able to get back.

[asyouburn]

its just a resolution drop. the game is exactly the same. everyone is acting like the 360 disc wil explode in the disc tray killing any small children in the room. again, i reiterate, its the same game! im almost 32 hours into bayonetta on ps3 and i love the game. does it run better than 360 version? no, but its runs well, and the game is still the same kick ass game. same with ghostbusters other than the lower rez, its the same game. ive almost platinumed it and really liked it. thats what kills me is everyone either cries "we got screwed" or yells "our version is vastly superior" but in reality, its just resolution difference. square has worked many years on the game, and it may not be what everyone expected, but is still a work of art nontheless. if the game was unplayable, or wouldnt load, or was generally broken, then one version could claim superiority, but as of right now, the ps3 version is just the same game with higher res.

[lucifon]

Have to wonder who approves this rubbish. Wish there was some solid article moderation around here to prevent the site from being filled with fanboy crap for hits.

[Dellis]

I would suggest DF guy replies to this, he got his ass digitally raped

[JustTheFactsMr]

MS plant stories all the time. They use 3rd parties to make it look like independent journalism. It's why magazines have two different "standards" when it comes to PS3 and 360. It's why the language is so forgiving of the 360 and disparaging, mocking and hate filled towards the PS3. At best begrudging acknowledgement with a tacked on but the 360 could do it as well. Even when all the evidence is it can't and hasn't.

They have been doing it for decades. It's part of their business manifesto. MS mail from court documents

"David & I have spoken with Maureen O'Gara and PLANTED the story. She has AGREED to NOT ATTRIBUTE the story to us."

https://docs.google.com/vie... http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/...

You don't need to move to China or Russia. Propaganda and Orwells 1984 is in full swing in the U.S of A due to corporate manipulation of the media. Up is down. Down is Up based on who pays the most coin.

RROD didn't exist for 2 years because the same media covered it up while all their machines were dropping like flies. Like flies.

It's why Live with it's 8 vs 8 laggy p2p is trumpeted as a better place to play games than 16 vs 16, 32 vs 32, 128 vs 128 games on dedicated servers. Down is up and up is down. They talk about anything that is different on the 360/Live as better and anything on the PS3/PSN as questionable if you really want that.

These "journalists" in the media aren't really gamers. Just PR people masquerading as gamers. PS3 had more games at launch than the 360 yet all the "journalists" talked about was the PS3 having no games. Even years later. At 360 launch they were coming so hold on because it would be worth it. A year later you got a single lame ass 4 vs 4 lagfest you had to pay for. And then they really pushed the envelope with the sequel by upping it to 5 vs 5.

You've been had because of the corporate corruption. A xbox 1.5 with a massive failure rate from day one passed off as next gen thanks to the corruption. DVD with less storage space and scratch magnet, same 5.1 audio, no standard HDD and $60 single player games.

USA is now the land of the brave and duped.

[IHateYouFanboys]

take of your tin-foil hat pal, its cooking whats left of your brain.

[JustTheFactsMr]

Attack the person rather than the facts. Typical.

I guess the court documents and the lawyers and the judges that convicted them all wear tin foil hats as well. Yep it's all a conspiracy against poor law abiding victim MS. Even when they spell out how they manipulate the media to deceive people in their own e-mail. LOL.

USA land of the brave and duped. Willingly.

[RageAgainstTheMShine]

wait a tick these are some UK based sites where they say M$ has vice like grip. also UK has the largest software piracy bussiness in the world. no brainer for a 360 thriving economy.

[Biggest]

"It's why Live with it's 8 vs 8 laggy p2p is trumpeted as a better place to play games than 16 vs 16, 32 vs 32, 128 vs 128 games on dedicated servers. Down is up and up is down. They talk about anything that is different on the 360/Live as better and anything on the PS3/PSN as questionable if you really want that."

If this isn't said a million times and ignored as much. They say gamers love it. But then they promote the many features that have nothing to do with the actual game. 16 players and lag is better than 256 players with no lag because you can talk to people playing Geometery Wars at the same time.

Oh yeah. . . I know this has NOTHING to do with FFXIII or the PS3 being better at FFXIII than the 360.

[IHateYouFanboys]

i mustve imagined frontlines: fuel of war being 50 players online on dedicated servers on the 360? suppose i imagined Left 4 Dead or any number of the other games using dedicated servers actually using dedicated servers?

more players != better. dedicated servers != always better.

the number of players is chosen on pretty much everything OTHER than 'how many players can the internet possibly handle at a time?'. gears of war 2 is 5 on 5 for design reasons. Uncharted 2 is 5 on 5 for design reasons. MW2 is 6 on 6 for design reasons - even the bigger ground war mode feels like there are too many players lots of the time. Resistance 2 has 30 on 30, and its just rubbish BECAUSE of the number of players.

[jalen247]

I lost a lot of respect for DF after I read their FF XIII analysis.

There is definitely a double standard and bias going on...

I am glad that others saw it and someone called them out on it...

Sony took a lot of negative press and heat for the PS3's exotic architecture and blu-ray, the least the press can do now is to show some respect and praise to Sony for being right and showing that these technologies matter and differentiate PS3 games from Xbox 360 games.

[RageAgainstTheMShine]

instead of fihting fire with fire Sony becomes water and make game sthat speak for them selves. M$ is all talk but no walk.

A lazy company that pays to have others do the work for them.
While Sony is at the fore front of game development and fostering the best talents in the industry.

soon enough M$ will be left with nothing no first party (Bunjie & Epic) because of their evil practrices.

Like Google properly puts it: "Don't Be Evil"

Peace out!

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

He made fun of Kingdom Hearts? The man should just stfu and gtfo.